


כִּפָּה

by emimix3



Series: Jacob Zimmermann [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Cultural Differences, Gen, Introspection, Jewish Character, Jewish Jack Zimmermann, Judaism, Kippa, Religion, Shabbat | Sabbath | Sabt, Zimmermann Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-21 00:55:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19363117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emimix3/pseuds/emimix3
Summary: Jack was going to be late. He just had one small thing he had to deal with before he left.





	כִּפָּה

It was Friday afternoon. Jack was going to be late.

 

For once, he had his day totally free. He was out for a week because of a hit on his ribs, he had no interview or event lined up, Bitty was on a roadie, Shitty was studying and Lardo, Ransom and Holster were working.

 

It was Friday, soon before sunset, and Jack had nothing planned. So Jack had decided to go to the synagogue for the Shabbat service.

He barely had the time to go to the synagogue, in the year and a half since he moved to Providence. During the off-season, this summer, he managed more or less, but as soon as games started, his schedule stopped him from doing so. He wished he could do it more, but he can’t be difficult.

He couldn’t keep Shabbat, and probably would never be able to until he retired (and maybe, not even then) that was for sure. He couldn’t stop answering to the outside world for 25 hours on _Fridays_ and _Saturdays_. Not with his job. Because he never had 25 hours free from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturdays to begin with, with no games nor practice, and even if he did, it meant that he had to spend those free hours doing a thousand other things, like interviews or brand deals or _whatever,_ because that’s what being the face of the franchise meant. Not studying and praying and sharing meals with family. That’s the job he wanted, so he can’t be difficult.

He could keep kosher, but only at home. Out of it, most of the time he just could make sure not to mix meat and dairy, not to eat pork, or pick ‘helal or vegetarian options, but that was it. When he’s stuck in a roadie in the middle of nowhere and he has to eat 5000 calories a day, he can’t be difficult.

 

But he was home, he was free, and he could go to the Shabbat service today. He couldn’t _keep_ Shabbat, because he had to phone his agent in the morning, but that was better than usually.

 

At the synagogue, he would be wearing a kippa.

 

Jack owned several.

They were all in his lap right now.

He just had to pick one.

 

There was the blue-and-beige crocheted one, his favourite, that looked like his Saba’s, and the green one that Savta had knitted him and that was awfully done because Savta was _not_ a good knitter. There was the tacky shiny purple one, that he got for his cousin’s bar mitzva, with the kid’s name printed inside. There was the really old washed-out black velvet one his Zeyde had brought from Europe. There was the dark suede one that he never wore because his dad had the exact same, and a lighter suede one he didn’t wear either because a bird had pooped on it during Sukkot fifteen years ago. There was a plain matte black one, the colour of his hair and quite small, that he probably got for his Hasidic cousins weddings. There was the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Habs and the Ninja Turtles ones that he wore all the time when he was a kid, before he switched from Jewish to public school.

He was holding the blue kippa now, and his thumbs were feeling the bumps of the crochet. That’s the one he usually put in his pocket before going to the synagogue, and that he brought with him when he travelled – even if it never got out of his bag if the trip wasn’t to Montreal to visit his parents. When he prayed at home he used the black velvet most of the time.

 

But he loved his blue kippa.

 

He wished he could wear it all day long.

 

But his father didn’t wear a kippa. His Zeyde in Québec didn’t either. But Jack still wished _he_ could. Zeyde didn’t wear one because he flew from Europe in ‘39 at eight because he was Jewish, and he probably didn’t feel safe anymore wearing such a distinctive garment now. And he was probably right, because of the rise of antisemitism everywhere.

 

At the end of the day, it wasn’t said that Jewish people should wear a kippa, after all. It wasn’t a mitzva. It was recommended for men to keep their heads covered, and a cultural custom, but there were other ways to do it that weren’t wearing a kippa. Like wearing a beanie or a cap. Jack could do caps. He did caps, already, all day long, inside, in the bus, at home, because a good Jewish man should keep his head covered; but a Jewish man didn’t look Jewish with a cap on.

Jack Laurent Zimmermann could probably go on with his life with wearing a cap when he was not in a synagogue or praying. He should stop longing for a kippa, because he can’t be difficult.

 

But the thing was – it was not the same.

 

At the beginning and end of the day, at least when he took the time to pray, Jack’s legal name was still Jacob Laurent Benzaoud-Zimmermann, Jacob ben Reuben, Jacob ben Atsila, and he was Jewish.

People wanted to forget it, and somehow, it was both hard to and easy to discard.  He kept being asked about his Christmas plans and people frowned when he asked for the day off for Kippur. His dietary restrictions often got him eyerolls. On roadies, saying the Sh’ma in the morning made him as uncomfortable as when he still had to sneak around to phone Bitty. His Wikipedia page didn’t list his place of birth because no one really knew he was born in Herzliya – being a Sabra and having both Israeli and Canadian passports wasn’t something he flaunted around. It said he was from “a family of Jewish origin”, to disconnect him from his roots some more.

“A family of Jewish origin” meant shit.

His Zeyde crossed the Atlantic illegally in the hold of a boat, because his parents and aunts and uncles gave all the money they had to the oldest cousin, a sixteen-year old girl, so she could bring all their kids (eight of them, ranging from two-year-old to ten) safely to America. They had promised her and their children they’ll join them once they had enough money to pay for a smuggler for themselves. They all died in camps and ghettos.

His Bubbe’s mom flew from the hundreds of pogroms post-Russian Revolution, and her dad’s family had gone to Québec one generation before to avoid the pogroms of the beginning of the century. They were Haredim, Hasidic, Orthodox, the kind of Jews that still got the stink eye and beats up today for “looking weird”.

His Savta was born in a shtetl in Ukraine, but grew up in Paris because her parents managed to flee right before the Holodomor – and they once again managed to flee to Mandatory Palestine right before the Shoah, both times leaving everything they owned, their friends, their jobs, their languages, their entire lives.

His Saba’s family had lived in Algeria for generations and generations and generations; and yet, they couldn’t stay there after the war, they were forced to leave, most to France, some to Israel, both places that gave them a hard time for being too Arab, too different, too lazy, greedy, too _everything._

Jack wasn’t from “a family of Jewish origin.” Jacob was from a family intrinsically, viscerally Jewish, and he was too, from his first name he never used and his first surname that he never used either and his second surname that the entire world knew, to his circumcised penis, passing by his philosophy and take on life and by the fact that growing up, he’s been taught than he only owned the things he was wearing and what he could grab and put in his suitcase in less than five minutes.

 

He was Jewish, he just wanted to be able to show it.

 

So, the kippa. Kipa, Kipah, Kippah. כִּפַּה. Or was it כִּפָּה ? Nowadays, כיפה. With a yod as a mater lectionis in lieu of the ‘hiriq.

Root kaf-pe-he. A daguesh in the kaf, one in the pe. It was a strong word, with two stop consonants -it didn’t soften in /khifa/. If you apply the pa’al biniyan to the root, you get the verb _לִכְפּוֹת_ _, likhpot_ **,** to force, to coerce. But the noun just meant dome. And a kippa, of course. But no force, no coercion. Wearing a _kippa_ wasn’t a mitzva, but it sure was a distinctive sign.

That was funny, now that Jack thought about it. Kippa, Caput, Kopf – different languages, the same semantic field of the head, similar consonants. K-P. It slipped to CH-F in French, with the old-fashioned _chef_ , but the idea was there; the sounds were still in _caboche, capituler, capitale_. And, of course, _coupe, cup, capitole,  qubba_ _قُبَّة_ _, kupu_ or _kubbe_. Half of the languages of the world, indo-european or semitic or finno-ougric seemed to agree that a dome and a head looked enough alike to have a similar etymology – and that etymology should be *K-B _._

Jack didn't know what to make of this. Maybe he should send a mail to his former semitic grammar professor. And it still didn't help him with the issue at hand – he wanted to wear the kippa.

 

But-

What if it was too much for Bitty?

Bitty didn’t mind Jack being Jewish. Because Jack wasn’t _that_ Jewish. Bitty probably found the few customs he saw exotic and quirky.

Bitty didn’t hear him pray because in the morning, Jack quickly said the Sh’ma when Bitty still slept, and he never took the time to do the full prayer when his boyfriend was here. And in the evening, most days, Jack forgot to pray at all. When Bitty was visiting, it was _all days_ that Jack forgot.

Bitty didn’t care about the kosher kitchen because Bitty was vegetarian and didn’t cook meat in there anyway. The rules were way more a pain in the ass for Jack than for him – but Bitty had been a good sport about it and hadn’t complained _too much_ when Jack had categorically refused he brought in the apartment anything he had baked during Pesa’h week last year.

Bitty would probably not understand if he saw that Jack started to wear a kippa – and Jack barely understood himself to begin with, and Jack didn’t know what he would do if Bitty does not _understand-_

What if it was too much for the world?

Wearing a kippa was already a big – and dangerous – step for all comers. It displayed you as a Jew to the world and you better be irreproachable while wearing it in public because the world would not have any qualms about applying your wrongdoings to the entire Jewish community to justify their hatred some more. But Jack was a public personality.

Was there one public personality in the United States, in Canada, who wore a kippa every day? All the examples that came to Jack’s head were Israeli people, that he knew about because he lived there one year after his overdose. Who in their right mind would put a target like a kippa on their head in America? Who would admit so openly being anything but assimilated to Christian culture, in a society that reeks antisemitism in every stratum? It was career suicide.  

His father sure never even thought about it. From Orthodox origins, he became Conservative early, was barely observant during his career, and after made sure to keep his culture for himself and to avoid mentioning it in public because that’s what was safer.

His mother maybe thought about those things. She was an Israeli woman who went to America for college and to try her luck as a model and actress, who was told really early she was lucky she got more from her Ukrainian mom than her Algerian dad, who was told that with a name like Atsila Benzaoud she’ll never go far in the industry but she should use Alicia Johnson instead – and Jack knew that it was hurting her more than it was hurting his dad, but she still did it, because it was safer.

It was already too much for himself.

 

He shouldn’t be difficult. A cap was enough. It didn’t bring attention to him and it covered his head and it respected the status quo. It has worked for him until now. And it was safer.

He should stop feeling guilty whenever he can’t do something. If he can’t observe a mitzva, there’s 612 others. Covering your head wasn’t a _mitzva_ anyway. With a kippa even less. It was just a cultural tradition, that he didn’t _have_ to follow.

 

But he wanted to wear his favourite kippa on the way to the synagogue.

 

 

Jack took three bobby pins, the small kippa the colour of his hair, and slowly secured it on his head. He put his Falconers cap above it, and he got up.

 

It was almost Shabbat, and Jack was going to be late.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed!
> 
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